With February 14 around the corner, what better time to assess your satisfaction in your relationship? Luckily for you, researchers at Stockholm University have just the test – designed to assess key aspects of your relationship such as emotional intimacy, trust, and conflict resolution, in seven simple questions. They even provide helpful tips and tricks that may help to strengthen your bond.
In a recently published study, the team introduces the “Valentine’s Scale”, a scientifically validated questionnaire to measure relationship satisfaction. It is freely available in three languages and is intended to provide an easily interpretable indicator of romantic relationship satisfaction.
The Valentine’s Scale asks the user seven questions, with a combination of specific questions, for example about problem-solving, conflict resolution, and communication, and more general questions, for instance about overall relationship satisfaction. Each has four possible responses, ultimately providing you with a score from zero to 21.
The items on the scale were chosen with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in mind, and are designed to reflect key aspects of relationship functioning that are central to CBT-based interventions.
Far from just a bit of Valentine’s Day fun, the test was created to fill a gap in how we assess relationship satisfaction. Our romantic relationships play an important part in our quality of life and wellbeing, yet reliable and easy-to-access tools to measure our satisfaction in them are lacking.
“This scale makes it possible to quickly and efficiently get an idea of how a relationship is doing, without having to go through long and complicated interviews or questionnaires. It can even be used during couples counselling to monitor progress over time,” Per Carlbring, professor of psychology at Stockholm University and one of the researchers behind the study, said in a statement.
Putting the scale to the test, the researchers conducted two studies based in Sweden, involving a combined total of 1,378 people. The first focused on couples seeking relationship therapy, while the second involved couples where at least one person in the relationship had a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The results of both studies demonstrated that the Valentine’s Scale has high reliability over time. “To our knowledge, the Valentine scale is the first freely available, unidimensional measure of relationship satisfaction that has been subjected to as stringent criteria for validation as detailed in this paper,” the team writes in the paper, although they add that further evaluation is needed to fully understand its performance.
As such, the tool has the potential to be used in therapeutic contexts, Carlbring explained: “It can predict improvements in quality of life and contribute to a reduction in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression by quickly providing a clear picture of how the relationship is doing and thus enabling early intervention.”
However, it should be used with caution in cases of severe depression, the researchers caution, and should not be used to make any rash decisions about the future of a relationship.
“Do the Valentine’s test as a step to start getting closer to each other on Valentine’s Day,” Carlbring said – it is best used as a tool for reflection and dialogue, and it is important not to over-interpret or become too fixated by the results.
“If the test result raises concerns, it may be a good idea to talk about what lies behind the answers. Relationships are dynamic and affected by many factors. It may be stress, communication difficulties or other life circumstances. By reflecting together, you can find ways forward, whether it’s strengthening the relationship or making other decisions.”
The Valentine’s Scale is available here, and the study is published in the journal Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
